Russia calls on world to end South Ossetia bloodshed

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will continue working to stop bloodshed in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia and the international community should jointly work to achieve this goal, the Russian Foreign ministry said on Friday.

"It is not too late to avert massive bloodshed and new victims," said a ministry statement read out by ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov on Vesti-24 television. "Russia will continue efforts to avert the bloodshed and restore peace in South Ossetia."

"We hope our foreign partners will not remain impartial in this difficult moment, when the fate of hundreds of thousands people is decided," he added. "The Georgian leadership should ... return to civilized ways of solving complicated problems."

(Writing by Oleg Shchedrov; Editing by Richard Balmforth)